Multi-wavelength Brillouin–Raman fiber laser generation assisted by multiple four-wave mixing processes in a ring cavity

Abstract

A multi-wavelength Brillouin-Raman fiber laser (MBRFL) is generated by using a 7.7 km long dispersion compensating fiber which acts as both the Brillouin and Raman gain media. The MBRFL is pumped at 16 dBm with two Raman pumps at 125 mW. Eleven Stokes and anti-Stokes lines are generated with a line spacing of about 0.155 nm (~19.86 GHz) without any forward line reflection. By combining the backward and forward outputs, more lines can be generated, with narrower line spacings of about 0.077 nm (~9.93 GHz). The number of lines can be increased by having higher Brillouin and Raman pump powers. Since Raman amplification can be arranged at any wavelength region, the MBRFL can be obtained at any wavelength as long as all of the equipment and components are prepared in the proposed operational wavelength region.

Multi-wavelength fiber laser generation by using optical wavelength conversion

“…The output ratio of the coupler C1 is chosen to be 1/99, with the lower level port (B) extracts MBFL output. Therefore, a MBFL with double-Brillouin-shift line spacing can be generated [15]. In order to generate a FWM multiwavelength fiber laser and an increased number of lines, the second TLS (TLS2) is employed as a FWM pump, combined with the MBFL by the 3-dB coupler C2 and amplified by the second EDFA (EDFA2) before being emitted into a 100 long highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF).…”

“…New multi-wavelength sources have an important role in facilitating the needs in areas such as optical communication, spectroscopy, light detection and ranging (LiDAR), imaging, optical sensing and metrology [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Among the various methods for generating these multi-wavelength sources, the method based on cascaded stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), a nonlinear effect, is common because of its simplicity of configuration, easy tunability without any ultra-narrow filter requirements, and accurate line spacing [15][16][17][18]. Even though nonlinearities in electromagnetism are weak effects, it is known that confining coherent light, especially for a long time in a small volume waveguide or cavity, can enhance the interaction of light with matter and increase the intensity of the light sufficiently to generate significant and useful nonlinear effects [19][20][21].…”

Central-wavelength-tunable multi-wavelength fiber laser based on micro-air gap cavity and tapered fiber structure

“…In the past few years, these fiber lasers have been successfully used in a multitude of applications including wavelengthdivision-multiplexing (WDM) systems, optical fiber sensors and fiber device testing [1][2][3][4]. Numerous methods have been reported in the development and applications of MWEDFLs, such as applying Raman amplifiers [5], EDF amplifiers [6], and birefringence fiber lasers [7]. However, these lasers have a high cost and are made by a rather longer cavity length.…”

Effective use of an EDFA and Raman pump residual powers via a Bi-EDF in L-band multi-wavelength fiber laser generation

“…Multi-wavelength Brillouin fiber lasers (MBFLs) can be generated by cascaded stimulated Brillouin scattering (CSBS) as a simple, accurate and consistent method with flexible wavelength tuning [18][19][20]. Brillouin Stokes power is dependent on Brillouin pump (BP) power in a SBS process, so it is customary to use hybrid gains such as Brillouin-erbium and Brillouin-Raman gains to increase the number of Brillouin Stokes lines generated in CSBS processes in multi-wavelength Brillouin-erbium fiber lasers (MBEFLs) and multi-wavelength Brillouin-Raman fiber lasers (MBRFLs) respectively [21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. Although MFLs can be generated by erbium gain media with advantages of power conversion efficiency and low threshold, such lasers are normally unstable and suffer gain competition among different lasing wavelengths at room temperature due to the homogenous line broadening and cross-saturation gain of EDF [28].…”